Compassion
by Star Garden
Summary: Molly was always naive and sentimental. Sherlock was neither of these things, but she still loved him and helped him with all of the pieces of her heart. And someone knows just how to play that game to his advantage...
1. The Villain

**Hello Inquirers All, **

For if you love Sherlock as much as I did, you definitely love mystery.

I will be frank, I don't really have much of a plan for where this story is going. However, the idea grabbed me by the brain and has not let me have any peace since, so here I am, and here is the story. Aside from that, I would have gone categorically crazy waiting for the third season. The pairing is Sherlock/Molly for the moment, and we will see how that goes, but I believe that to be a strong point in this tale. I know a lot of you are John/Watson shippers, and I am aware or the plot of the books, but please climb aboard mine!

If you have criticism, as long as it is constructive, please feel free to message. I would like a beta, but I'll see about that later. And, just for the record, none of this belongs to me except my own plot. I am merely playing in a large, elaborate sandbox. Now, on with the story, I've bored you enough!

**Chapter 1: The Villain**

"_O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!  
>My tables—meet it is I set it down<br>That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain-"_

Hamlet, Shakespeare

"_If t__here is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, _

_it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can't _

_deny a kind of respect for the great criminal."_

Denis Dedirot

She had never had her heart broken by anyone but herself. When she had been young, it was because she had cared too much. When she grew older, it was because no one else had cared enough. She always wore her heart on her sleeve. She knew it was reckless, dangerous and that it made her vulnerable. But that was just who she was, and she was never able to change, despite everything. In spite of everything. Although she was intelligent, subterfuge was never a skill for her to lay claim to. She was as easy to read as any picture book, and she would be happy to open her heart to anyone, even when they did not deserve it. But no one ever asked for her heart, and a rare few would accept it, even though it was offered freely. Her longing looks out windows, her lonely tea breaks in cafés, her tears. They were all because she would let herself hope. Hope was like the snowflakes that would glisten in the night in the cold of winter, beautiful but fleeting. She had experienced both, and she could say with confidence that it is never the loss that causes the most pain, it is the hope.

The hope of what could have been. The hope of what might be. The hope that someday, someone… But she knew which someone she would always think of when she had these thoughts. When she listened to the sad songs. It was always him, and it always would be.

But then, the "always", might run a bit short…

"Ohhh Darling, you **have** been busy while Daddy's been away."

It was an effort. And still, she opened her eyes. Eyes which she thought had been glued shut to her face by now, from the blood and the swelling. Really, she should not have even been cognizant by now, with all of the work that had been done on her. There was pain. Pain that lived with her. Pain that breathed, and choked and cried as she did. Pain that was sharp and keening, and biting at her with all of the subtlety of an attacking hound. She took a mental inventory of herself. Yes, she was still tied by her wrists by that coarse and knotted rope. Her feet were still dangling just above the floor. While she was in pain, she was no longer bleeding. A small consolation. Nothing was broken, except for her right ankle, but she doubted anything was useful to her anymore. Escape was beyond her capabilities, surely. Her eyes were open, but it was still mostly dark, she really had not expected that to change, anyway.

There was one light in front of her; however, it was tempting but she did not want to look. For she knew which demon was in her presence now. She was already in the depths of a fiery hell, and still he was the devil, prodding into her back towards the flame. She was the naïve princess in the fairytale: Sleeping Beauty, who woke from a deep sleep, violated and with children. Snow White, who was hunted and almost consumed. Red Riding Hood, who ventured into the forest, and never returned quite the same. Although they were such grim tales, there still needed to be an instigator, a whisperer, a spider. A villian. He was the epitome of all of them.

He was a man who kissed her dispassionately on the second date. He was a man who fed her cat. He was a man possessing an easy smile, and timid nature. He is the darkness. To say that he merely belongs in the darkness would be a grievous affront to all entities insidious and cruel, for that is where_ they _hide, and he is the one who shelters them. Then he suddenly grabbed her shoulders and shook her body with his sudden mercurial anger, stars exploded in her eyes and pain, her constant companion, blossomed even further.

"**LOOK AT ME!"**

Without meaning to, because she was so tormented she thought nothing else could pain her so much now, she did.

She gazed right into the blackened eyes of Moriarty, and the abyss gazed right back.

It was her hope, her naïve, and trusting hope that placed her where she was today. And, although it had broken her heart, and it may serve to break many other parts of her in the coming time, she couldn't bring herself to regret it, any of it. Never. Although she was intelligent, she was just Molly Hooper, and she always would be.


	2. The Flight

**Hey There Inquirers,**

**Here is Chapter Two, and from here on in the format will be a bit different. Each chapter will have a sort of flashback/reflection of Molly's. I was serious when I said that this would focus on Molly's point of view. ;)**

**So, no real plot development here, but a lot of foreshadowing, I hope you read it anyway and tell me what you think! There is no forward movement, but this is a glimpse as to what Molly is thinking and a little bit of her motives, basically this is all about her past. **

**Ps. I don't own the characters, or else there would have been Sherlolly from episode 1. The people who write the actual series are so gifted and talented, I am merely playing in their kingdom for a while. **

**Oh… Past scenes = **_Italics_

**Present = **regular font.

**Chapter Two: The Flight**

"_**Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine."**_

_**-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe**_

"_**I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants just as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. She hurt my feelings and set my teeth permanently on edge, but when I asked Atticus about it, he said there were already enough sunbeams in the family and to go on about my business, he didn't mind me much the way I was." **_

_**-To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee**_

Molly remembered her father.

The memories would suddenly spring upon her at times both unusual and unexpected. As he had passed for many years the pain of his death was an old sore that, while painful, no longer had the ability to bleed out, and no longer needed so much bandaging. It was a pain that could only be noted, and Molly had already accepted that it was one that would never quite go away. She had never wanted it to. In any case, she had had both the blessing and the curse in the fact that at least her father's was not a sudden passing.

But when she thought of him, it was never of his death or even of the period leading to it. She could count herself lucky that whenever she was bent over the spent corpse of an older man with white hair, which was quite often considering her career choice, she never thought of her father in those moments. No, never then.

It would be when she was ensconsed in her favourite comfortable armchair, with her cat in her lap. If she were reading anything pertaining at all to medicine, she would think of him. If it was a medical journal, if it were a piece of fiction about a doctor, even if it were one of Alexander Chekhov's stories or Aesop's Fables, she would think of him. Her father had been a professor at the presitigious Oxford University, in the medical sciences department. That being so, when she grew up she had both the honours of living in comfortable, luxurious residences, never wanting for anything, and the disappointment of a father who was quite occupied most of the year. A favourite of all of his students, her father had always had a passion for the science. He was a professor most students can only imagine having: someone who lectured with a gentle, but strong voice, who inspired, but never preached. He understood, and nurtured, the common student, and passed his great love and passion on to each generation of students. At his funeral, there were upwards of 500 people in attendance. Many of those present were his past students.

However, his most enthusiastic and perhaps his most beloved student, was his youngest daughter, Molly. Whenever he had the time, most often between terms at Oxford, the two would spend whole days doing chemical experiments and going to medical museums. Visiting hospitals and seeing people, a certain allowance is made after all, once one reaches a certain level of knowledge. Her father, being a professor, had all of the privileges of a head doctor whenever he visited hospitals. And Molly was ever following, ever eager to learn. So much so that he had always called her "Molly Mouse." She would giggle and call him "Papa Mouse." That was their secret, fond name for each other. That was their game, a game no one knew but them, and for that, Molly always cherished it.

These trips, these excited whispers about experiments or diagnoses, did not go unnoticed by the other half of Molly's family. Molly's mother, Anne, would always purse her lips and frown a bit, always despairing that Molly was growing to be so much like a boy that eventually she might not develop girl parts at all. Anne was a beauty, and always had been. She had luscious curves, a full-lipped smile and dark, wavy hair. Really, the only part Molly seemed to have inherited from her was her eyes. Molly always was under-developed in her childhood. A bit too scrawny, too few curves, facts which her mother never failed to point out at every single family reunion. But for Molly's mother Anne, at least there was Gabrielle, her twin and devotee in every way that Molly was her father's.

Gabrielle, her older sister, was like her Mother in so many ways. Beautiful, confident, and in later years flirtatious, mischievious and generally uncaring about her actions and their consequences. Although in family's it is usually unsaid, there is always the presence of a favourite child. In the Hooper family, each parent's favourite was as obvious as if it had been announced by on a tannoy system on each of their respective births. Gabrielle was Anne's. Molly was her father's. It was the way things were, and no one ever questioned or brought it up. While in other families this would be a problem, it was normal for them to coexist as such. It is also usually the case that when a child lacks in love from one parent, they desperately try to seek that parent's attention. Luckily, it was not so for Molly. She loved her father and her father loved her dearly, but she never played any tricks or deliberately sought attention from her mother in the usual way of teenagers. She never had to be committed to any therapy sessions to talk tearfully about a lack of love. Her father had always loved her for who she was, more than enough to make up for her mother's disdain. Molly never begrudged Gabrielle their mother's affection. Gabrielle, however, always made things difficult for Molly at school when they were growing up. If Gabrielle could not snatch their father's attention from Molly, then at least no one at school would have any reason to like Molly.

Molly, Anne, Gabrielle, her father. They were a family unit, but a loose one. Although they would be there for each other, in sickness and health and in richer and poorer, there was clearly a division. Molly Mouse and Papa Mouse. Anne and Gabrielle. And as Molly grew older, and the love between her mother and father was strained by many obstacles, the gap only widened. And so, Molly's time with her father alone often comprised of her happiest times when she was a child. Now as an adult, more than ever, Molly needed those halcyon memories. And so she would welcome them, when they came. When she pulled one of her father's old favourite desserts out of the oven: cherry pie. When she saw azaleas bloom, her father's favourite flower. Sometimes even when she saw university students milling about, she wondered about her father's pupils. However, most peculiar of all the appearances of her father within her thoughts, would be when she was with Sherlock.

"_Papa Mouse!" _

_And with that exclamation, Molly Mouse would run into her papa's arms and he would laugh so hard and deep that her frame shook along with his. His eyes would twinkle with a secret that only she knew. He lifted her up and off her feet until she was up to eye level with him. She knew what was coming. She loved it. This was at a time when she was very small, and she was slight enough, and he was strong enough to play this particular game._

"_Would you like to fly Molly Mouse?"_

"_Silly Papa, mice can't fly," Molly would say with a smile on her face, but in a mock lecturing tone._

"_Well I will just have to prove you wrong!" And her father lifted her up and held her by her waist. He lifted her up above his head and started spinning around and around. Molly would laugh and squeal and spread her arms up high, while her father would just laugh. Sometimes they would run around a room like that, and he would swoop her down fast, like an airplane going in for a drop. And when Molly closed her eyes in those moments, it really did feel like she was flying. That the world was far beneath her, and she was a queen of it, so that nothing bad would ever happen to her. Not so long as she was there, safe in her father's hold. A place where she would never fall from. _

It was her father's laughter. It was that childish, and long forgotten feeling of flying that Molly would remember whenever Sherlock would sweep into her lab. The breathlessness, the exhileration, the vertigo. What she felt for him was just that feeling of flight. Molly loved it, but there was a darker, more adult part of her which dampened the childish fancy. It would whisper to her. It would say to her at her most lonely and vulnerable, that the flight: the wonderful, carefree and joyous flight, would always carry the possibility of turning into a frightening, and uncontrollable Fall.


End file.
